COASTAL OCEANOGRAPHY

1. Water circulation and the material transport process in the coastal areas and marginal seas of the East and Southeast Asia 2. Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Marine Microalgae 3. Biodiversity studies in the coastal waters of the eastern and the southeastern Asia 4. Pollution of hazardous chemicals in the coastal marine environment and their ecological effect

Katsumi Tsukamoto

Charoen Nitithamyong Mohd Ibrahim Seeni Mohd

Miguel D. Fortes Tran Duc Thanh

Ono Kurnaen Sumadhiharga

Started fromFY2001 Organization

Japan Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Ocean Research InstituteThe University of Tokyo Makoto Terazaki DirectorProfessor Ocean Research InstituteThe University of Tokyo Katsumi Tsukamoto Director/Professor, Center for International Cooperation, Ocean Research InstituteThe University of Tokyo Kyushu UniversityAsian Natural Environmental Science CenterNational Science MuseumKitazato UniversityKyoto University Counter country National Research Council of Thailand Chulalongkorn University Funding Agency Core University Representative Director Charoen Nitithamyong Head of Department of Marine ScienceChulalongkorn University Kasetsart UniversityPrince of Songkla UniversityBurapha University Counter country Department of Science and Technology University of the Philippines Funding Agency Core University Representative Director Miguel D. FortesProfessorUniversity of the PhilippinesDiliman University of the Philippines Los BanosDe La Salle UniversityUniversity of San Carlos Cooperative University Coordinator Tran Duc ThanhDirectorInstitute of Marine Environment and Resources Vietnam National University Coordinator Cooperative University Mohd Ibrahim Seeni Mohd Professor Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Universiti Sains MalaysiaUniversiti Putra MalaysiaUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Counter country National Centre for Natural Science and Technology Institute of Marine Environment and Resources Funding Agency Core University Counter country Indonesian Institute of Science Research and Development Center for OceanologyIndonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)

Representative Director Coordinator Ono Kurnaen Sumadhiharga Director Research and Development Center for OceanologyLIPI Sam Ratulangi UniversityBogor Agricultural UniversityDiponegoro University

Cooperative University

Counter country Vice-Chancellors Council of University in Malaysia University of Technology Malaysia National

Background & Object of Research More than three billion people live in the East Asia and South East Asia region and 70 percent of the population inhabits the coastal areas, which gives a serious impact on ecosystem and biodiversity in these areas. The living resources of these coastal areas are an extremely important source of food throughout the region. Therefore, the sustainable development and utilization of the coastal zone is one of the most important socio-economic issues which this part of the world faces now. Recently, the rapid development of industry and the tendency of the population to move into the urban areas along the coast have had a devastating impact on the environmental conditions in the coastal zone. This has also caused Red Tides, which are related to eutrophication and pollution by hazardous chemicals such as heavy metals, organochlorines , and organotins. Mangrove areas, coral reefs and sea grass beds in these coastal areas are essential habitats for many important marine organisms such as fish, shrimp and their larvae, and these habitats can be easily destroyed by sedimentation and land-based pollution. The populations of many marine species including sea turtles, dugongs, and corals are also decreasing year by year throughout the South East Asian waters, which are famous for having the richest biodiversity in the world. Therefore, comprehensive research on the ecology of coastal areas including interdisciplinary studies on physical and chemical oceanography, and on the biology of the marine organisms found there are indispensable. This five-year research program on the following four projects, which have attracted a great deal of attention among all IOC/WESTPAC programs, has been carried out since the fiscal year 2001, by Japanese scientists, playing a central role, and their counterparts in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam. Research Subject Project 1: Water circulation and the process of material transport in the coastal areas and marginal seas of the

East and Southeast Asia

Marine pollution is a serious social problem caused by the rapid development of industry in the wide coastal waters of the South East region (from Philippines to Indonesia). We intend to develop a new system to investigate oceanic conditions in wide coastal areas by utilizing satellite images under the close cooperation among all scientists concerned in member countries. We also make observations along the main coastal areas using research vessels and by analyzing both data collected from the satellite and those vessels, we try to develop the ecosystem models in order to analyze quantitatively the process of material transport in the coastal waters of each country. Project 2: Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Marine Microalgae Frequent occurrence of Red Tide phenomena caused by the eutrophication of coastal waters was a serious social problem in Japan in the 1970s. Recently, the same phenomena were observed in coastal waters of other Asian nations in line with the progress of the eutrophication and those countries have asked Japan to make a joint research on this issue. It was reported that many harmful microalgae involved food poisoning and occasionally deaths of human beings in these regions. Ecological study and toxic analyses of harmful microalgae including environmental surveys, is very important for the prediction and prevention of Red Tide and food poisoning. Project 3: Biodiversity Studies in the coastal waters of the East and Southeast Asia The South East Asian waters are famous for having the richest biodiversity in the world. But the habitats of many marine organisms are shrinking year by year as results of the environmental destroy and pollutions caused by the rapid development of coastal zone. Geographical distribution of biodiversity in this region has been studied by Asian and Japanese scientists. Long-term variation of diversity has also been traced to compare the future condition with the present one. Project 4: Pollution of hazardous chemicals in the coastal marine environment and their ecological effect Recently, marine coastal ecosystem was damaged seriously by the pollutions of hazardous chemicals which were caused by rapid development of industry and tendency of the population movement into the urban areas along the coast. Furthermore, toxic materials including dioxin were produced through incineration of waste and

garbage in the big cities, which have given a seriously harmful impact on health of people who live there. In accordance with a continuous technical training of analytical methods for hazardous chemicals, pollution survey in the coastal waters of each country is carried out and basic data related to the pollution are also gathered. Long-term monitoring systems of the environment are to be established to prevent the pollution. The Result up to the Present The Ocean Research Institute of Tokyo Univ. has carried out a lot of joint researches with Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia under the Core University Program since 1988. This project was integrated into one Multilateral Cooperative Program titled Coastal Oceanographyand it has been working since 2001 with two new member nations, Philippines and Vietnam. Scientists of the member countries have been operating four above-mentioned important projects to prevent further environmental destroy in close cooperation with each other. Since the beginning of this program, field surveys, workshops to establish effective research methods and international standard for analyzing methods and seminars to report the research results and to exchange information were conducted and achieved a big success. The followings are the outline of each project. Project-1 New methodology to investigate complex coastal water masses by utilizing satellite image analyzing system was developed by Asian and Japanese scientists at annual workshops held at Fukuoka(2001-2004). In these workshops, we have developed fundamental mathematical model and ecological model by also using observation data collected on research vessels. <Project-2> The life history of Red Tide plankton in the Gulf of Thailand was clarified. We succeeded in making up ELISA kit to detect shellfish poison and the analyses of poison volume were carried out in each member country. Toxic elements that caused food poisoning by harmful algae were found out. A guidebook concerning harmful algae was published and distributed to each member country for the education of young scientists. In order to achieve a technical standardization of monitoring of paralytic shellfish poison and shellfish poison causing memory lossa workshop was held in Vietnam(2004). In particular, diatom similar to Nitzschia was collected as a sample from the coastal areas around the Manila Bay and physiological and ecological research is currently proceeding in order to find out the mechanism of production of shellfish poison causing memory loss. <Project-3> Field surveys for the biodiversity of marine organisms were carried out in the Sulu Sea (2002) and in the Indonesian waters(2001-2004) by Asian and Japanese scientists during joint research cruises using the Japanese and Indonesian research ships. Workshops on sampling methods, preservation of samples, and the taxonomy of the major marine taxa for the advance of biodiversity research in the South East regions, were carried out in Tokyo (2001), Malaysia(2002), Thailand(2003) and Philippines(2004) and at the same time field surveys were carried out. Field guidebooks on algae and on fish taxonomy were published and distributed to relevant organizations of member nations. <Project-4> A workshop on the analytical methods for measuring heavy metals, organochlorines, and organotins in water and sediment was carried out in Thailand in 2002 and at that time the unified international analytical standard was established. Since then the joint research has been made in the Thailand Bay (2003) and the Manila Bay(2004) in order to analyze the seasonal change of toxic chemicals in the coastal areas, making a careful reference to the analytical data of each chemical collected by scientists specialized in the respective field. Investigations on pollution caused by mercury which is used in the process of refining at the gold mine in Manado, Indonesia and dioxin pollution in the garbage incineration facilities in such big cities as Bangkok and Manila are now proceeding. At the same time, data and information are being collected in view of the impact of these pollutions on human bodies.